Squeegee

Found out June 30th that I would have Friday and Monday off and thus have a 4 day weekend (that I kept accidentally calling a 5 day weekend -worrying my employers that I would take an extra day off). So, after hearing from my dad that they would probably not be able to have vacation in Jersey this year I decided to explore the options of going home that weekend. Two days later I was on a plane home!
Twas a grand, great, magical, stupendous weekend.
And I'm very glad I went.

On the return journey I was waiting for my shuttle to arrive at LGA when a janitor came over and started to move a bench that was against a window. I thought he was about to mop because from his cart he took out a long thin mop but the handle was too short. He took this cleaning wand and began swishing and wiping it across the window. The suds formed great big infinity signs as he made practiced figure-eights with his wrist. Carefully stepping to his right he made sure the expanse of the six-foot long window was covered in bright sparkling soap. He took a step back inspecting his work and satisfied, he moved on to changing instruments to a great big squeegee the size of my leg. Pulling the blade down the glass carefully he made sure not to miss an inch of glass.
Once he was done he returned to his cart and began to move on. Something stopped him, though, as he was about to move on. A smudge, only detectable to the eyes of someone who looks at the glass and not through it, was making a stand against cleanliness and refused to move its oily imprint from the window. The janitor took out his big guns, paper towels and generic windex, and gave the smudge a once-over. When nothing happened, instead of moving on to the next window inside the janitor disappeared.
I lost myself in staring at this smudge thinking about how no one would notice it except this man. How many hundreds of people trudge their traffic through that area every day? How many of them, travel-weary and worn, red-eyed and economy sized, are going to notice, let alone care, about a smudge on that window? I hadn't even thought about the upkeep of the airport until the older Indian man in his blue shirt and reflective vest had come over and started washing the window. A family of four stood nearby, from Tennessee as their sweatshirts boldly proclaimed, and I wondered how their lives would be different if no one cleaned the windows. Probably none at all.
Then I saw him again, on the other side of the window swishing and swiping his baton of cleaner, the janitor washing the outside surface of the smudged panel. He inspected carefully. The smudge was not gone. So back inside he went.
This time he put a bit more elbow grease into the spot-cleaning and soon enough the stubborn smudge was gone.
My shuttle arrived and I spent a good part of the time chatting with a woman in town on vacation from Alabama. The rest of my ride back I thought about the guy who took such pride in such a simple job that he made sure he did everything he could to do it right.

And now that's how I want to approach my receptionist job. I take on simple tasks at my job like making copies, faxes, switchboarding, message taking, package delivering. I'd like to take a page out of that custodian at LGA's book and do these simple tasks well. Maybe I'll do them well enough that someone will give me more windows to wash and I'll be thankful I took pride in my job so early on.